The Art of Protection
by Zuleora
Summary: When the turtles are outside, they spot a strange person. What is he up to? Should they follow him? The story will focus on all the turtles, but a little more on Leo and Raph. Rated T for later chapters.


**Disclaimer: **

_Unfortunately I don't own the TMNT_

**Author's note:**

_This is my very first story. I was simply trying out whether I like writing or not. Please go easy on me! :P  
Anyway, I had fun writing this. If there are many grammatical or spelling mistakes, please point them out. English is not my native language, so it's very difficult for me J_

* * *

Silence…  
Silence was everywhere around him. There was no sound to be heard.  
He slowly let his breath escape his lungs. He thought of nothing but thinking of nothing.  
Sile-…

"MIKEEEY! GET BACK HERE!"

His attempt at meditation was roughly interrupted by the voice of his younger brother Raphael. He sighed. He doubted very much if he would be able to concentrate anytime soon.  
The laughter of his baby brother filled the lair while he ran away from Raph's fury and Leonardo saw a very annoyed Donatello looking up from one of his latest inventions.

"Would you guys _please_ be silent for a minute? I can't concentrate like this at all!"

As Raphael seemed to notice that he'd never be able to catch up with Michelangelo, he decided to release is anger on his genius brother.

"Silent?! You can't expect us to be silent for a whole day just because you want to work on one of your stupid inventions!" yelled Raphael in his Brooklyn accent.

"It's not a stupid invention! It will help us in our battles against the Foot!"

"Raphael! Donatello!"

Raph had opened his mouth to snap back at Don when master Splinter entered the living room. The look on his face was enough to shut them both up. Donatello was pretty irritated, but he turned his attention to his work once more, while Raphael clenched his fist, lowered his gaze and muttered something about Mikey and a horrible death before giving Don the deadly glare that fitted the words.

"My sons, it is time for your training." Master Splinter stated, and he went towards the dojo. Mikey practically ran towards the dojo knowing that Raph would never hurt him as long as master Splinter was around. Donatello took a deep breath and put down his stuff before following.  
Leonardo had been waiting for the training, so he walked to the dojo in a pretty good mood. Then he noticed that Raphael had made no intention of going to the dojo.

"You coming Raph?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'll come" was the answer and tough Leo saw that he still was very enraged, he decided not to pay any attention to it this time. The last thing he wanted was his usually hotheaded brother to be angry at all three of them.

Once he entered the dojo, he watched as Raphael came in and the latter gave Mikey a furious look before taking his place beside Leo, in front of master Splinter. Leonardo had always liked training, especially when it involved sparring, which was now, but now that Raphael was in such a bad mood he knew he'd have to be careful when sparring with his sai wielding brother. He predicted there was no way Splinter would let Raph train with Mikey or Don when his anger was towards them. He predicted right.

"Raphael, you will train with Leonardo. Donatello and Michelangelo, you will train with each other."

Leonardo sighted. Of course he would have to deal with an angry Raphael this time.

"However," master Splinter continued "Michelangelo, you will use the sai. Donatello, the katana. Raphael, the bō staff. And Leonardo, you will use the nunchaku for training."

Leonard felt like his mood dropped 10 levels. He was relatively bad at using weapons with a short range, especially when his opponent had a long-range weapon. On top of that, Raphael had no problem with any weapon that could be handled using a lot of brute force. Very well, he would just have to deal with this. Hopefully he could make Raph drop the staff quickly and get this over with.

Raphael and Leonardo took their places and Leo bowed respectfully. Raph's 'bow' was nothing but a short an impatient nod before he charged at his eldest brother. Leonardo took a defensive state and let his brother come at him. As his immediate younger brother used only offensive moves, Leo had no choice but to remain defensive. He jumped dodging Raph's attempt at swiping his feet from under his body, and had to duck only a second after that because of his red clad brother swinging the bo dangerously close to his head.  
After what seemed like minutes he finally saw an opening in Raphael's offensive defense and he twirled the nunchucks around the wrists in which Raph currently had the bo staff. He pulled his younger brother closer, forcing him to drop the weapon. Before he could continue his attack further, Raphael managed to punch him in the stomach. He stumbled back a little startled, and Raph used this time well to pick up the bo staff he had dropped. The usually sai wielding turtle swung the staff at Leonardo's chest, but Leo had already recovered from the last hit and blocked it with ease while quickly delivering his brother a kick. Raphael was taken by surprise, which gave Leonardo the opportunity to hit the other turtle in the side with the nunchucks.  
What he didn't see was that the reason the angry turtle had not defended himself was to strike an attack himself. In a split second he regretted his last attack as he saw the wooden staff come at his head. With full force the bo staff hit his temple.

The next thing he knew he was laying down on the floor. He had been out but it couldn't have been more than a few seconds, for the others were still standing in the same places as before. The only difference was that they now looked at him in shock. His head hurt and when he tried to stand up the world was spinning and he'd have fallen down again if it wasn't for the wall of the dojo he bumped against. He closed his eyes and breathed heavily.

"Are you okay Leo?" He heard the concerned voice of Donatello.

He nodded, but immediately regretted that. He opened his eyes and saw Don, Master Splinter and Mikey standing next to him with concerned looks on their faces. Raph was still standing where he had been standing delivering the blow. Leo saw that his anger was gone now and figured that he was trying to apologize, but didn't know how. His brother had always been like that.

"Leo, I'm… I don't' know why I did that" He began, looking horrified at his hands.

"It's okay Raph," Leo said giving his little brother a reassuring smile. "It was an accident. I should have paid more attention."

Now that his world was no longer spinning he dared to step away from the supportive wall. His head was still pounding, but it didn't hurt as much as it did before.

"I'm going out for some air." He told Master Splinter and his brothers before getting his katana and leaving the dojo.

* * *

Once topside, he took a deep breath of air and sat down on a rooftop near the sewer entrance closest to the lair. Being outside really helped reducing the pain in his head. After a while the pounding slowly faded away. He heard some noises behind him. He recognized it as the ninja-sounding footsteps of his three brothers.

"Yo Leo! Master Splinter said we could go for a rooftop run. You in?"

His youngest brother excitedly jumped next to him. When Leo looked around he saw that Don and Raph were leaning against wall behind him. He suddenly felt like he could use some exercise and stood up.

"Yeah, sure! The first one at April's will get the whole pizza when we get home!" He said before running off.

Raph en Mikey quickly joined their brother running. Don reacted a little slower since his attention had been somewhere else and was quite surprised to be standing all alone on the rooftop were his brothers were just a moment ago, but followed soon after.

* * *

Raph and Leo were ahead of the others, but the distance between the two was very small. Raphael was certain he could win this run from Leo. Normally his oldest brother or his youngest brother would win this type of game. A sudden pang of guild ran through his body as he realized that he was probably the reason the grass-green turtle was a little slower than usual. He quickly shook off this feeling as he noticed his other brothers were nowhere near him and Leo. A sudden unusual motion in an ally a few levels down caught the attention of both turtles. They exchanged a single look as they both jumped down the fire escape.

In complete silence the brothers stared at the origin of the motion. After what seemed to be ages they spotted the person that had made the suspicious movement. It was a person in black, acting like a ninja. However, this was no ordinary foot ninja. 'Shell, it most likely isn't even a Foot ninja,' Raph thought. Foot ninja were no problem, especially when they were alone. He raised an eyebrow at Leo, but the team's fearless leader shook his head as an answer, meaning that they would not engage this man before his intentions were clear. It bothered Raph that a ninja that didn't have anything recognizable on him. What if this person worked for the Shredder? Or maybe even worse? Suddenly the ninja-person-thing moved towards a man-hole. Raphael looked sideways at his brother. Leo had a confused and worried look on his face. Raph shared these feelings. Why would a ninja go to the sewers? The only reason the red clad turtle could think of was to pay the turtles a visit, what usually wasn't a good sign. Besides, where the shell were Donny and Mikey?

As if he had spoken the last question out loud he noticed two shadowy creatures approach. They were obviously his younger brothers. The ninja had disappeared into the sewers and that was probably the reason the two turtles dared to come any closer. Leo did not seem at all surprised by their present. It was not like Raphael had expected him to be. After all, nothing ever seemed to pass by Mister Perfect unnoticed.

"Are we going in?" Don asked Leo, who nodded.

"Yes, if he is going to the lair we need to know his intentions. I have a bad feeling that they are not very polite. Donnie, you'll contact Master Splinter. If anything comes into the lair, he must be warned. Mikey, you stay with Don and the two of you will come after us as soon as the call is made."

Without wasting more time Raphael and Leonardo hurried into the sewers. Raphael figured Leo had taken him with him because he expected a fight. It felt good to know that his big brother trusted him this much in a fight. Besides, Raphael was the strongest fighter they had. There was no way Leo would pick Mikey or Don to fight with him in a fight to dead if he also could choose Raph. It wasn't that he didn't trust the others with his life, he did. It was just that Raph and Leo were the protectors of the other two. At least, that was how Raph saw it and he was pretty confident Leonardo felt the same way about this. They listened very carefully and heard very faint sounds of someone walking. They followed their ears as they tried to shadow the shadowy figure without making any other sounds. It was in their advantage that they knew al regular sounds in the sewer. This way they were able to filter the unusual sounds from the common sounds, while their suspected enemy hopefully couldn't hear the difference.

* * *

"Let's go Don!" Mikey said "We can't leave all the butt kicking to Leo and Raphie-boy!" Donatello noticed his only little brother was very excited and hyperactive. It was probably because of this strange person walking around the streets of New York like a ninja. Sure, there was the Foot. They were ninja as well. The difference between the two was this one actually seemed worthy of the title. Foot ninja were easily defeated when walking around alone, something that practically never happened. So this was either a very good Foot ninja, not wearing the Foot symbol, or otherwise this was someone else entirely. The Shredder had more than one type of ninja. Don would not be surprised at all if this one turned out to be one of the Foot's commanders. It took him no more than a moment to realize he didn't want his older brothers all by themselves fighting an army of Foot ninja.

"Yes, we're going after them Mikey." He said, giving Michelangelo a smile. Since both Leo and Raph were non present, he was the one to give the orders. Although the leadership was passed on in order of age, Donatello suspected their sensei had other reasons for picking this order. Leonardo was a born leader. Every one of them saw that except maybe for the oldest turtle himself. Even his hotheaded brother knew this, although Raph would never admit this.

Mikey and Don entered the sewers through the same man-hole where they'd seen the other disappear.

"How are we gonna find them Donny?" Mikey asked

"Quite simple really" He answered, "You do realize they have their Shell Cells with them so I can track them, don't you?"

Mikey made an I-should-have-thought-about-that-Face. "Of course I do, Geez, I'm not stupid bro!" But he shut his mouth after that.

The genius pushed the tracker-button on his Shell Cell. He waited a few seconds for his phone to react.

"Come on Mikey, the signal is pointing this way." He walked deeper into the sewers.

They proceeded very carefully. Donatello didn't want to risk running into the ninja guy.

"Are we close yet?"

"Yes, be silent!"

"Sorry, just asking…"

Donatello sighed. Typically Michelangelo. They were following a ninja, and of course Mikey didn't have enough concentration to remain silent.

After walking a little further they came close to their layer, where they started hearing the sounds of battle. Don and Mikey glanced at each other before running towards it. Don grabbed his bow off his back. He began to worry. What if they did not get there in time and Leo, Raph or Master Splinter would get hurt? He knew he shouldn't worry, since he knew they could perfectly take care of themselves in battle. But still… Besides, how did that ninja know the location of their home? No one had ever found the secret location of their house. Realizing he was thinking too much, as usual, he followed Mikey, who had already taken off.

He dashed around the corner only to find the lair on his left side, untouched. The battle was obviously taking place somewhere past the lair. He felt relieved to know their home might still be safe. They ran a little bit further. Now they could clearly see the fight. Leo, Raph and even their sensei were battling against an army of at least fifty Foot ninja. They were holding still holding up, but barely. Don and Mikey quickly joined the fight.

They'd run straight into an ambush.


End file.
